


Just set them up to knock them down

by muselives



Category: Fringe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-29
Updated: 2010-01-29
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:56:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muselives/pseuds/muselives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thomas approaches Rachel as a mission. [<a href="http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/26521.html">Porn Battle IX</a>, Fringe, Rachel/Thomas, mission]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just set them up to knock them down

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://chichuri.livejournal.com/profile)[**chichuri**](http://chichuri.livejournal.com/), "Now I've got these duel ideas, one where Rachel is dating what's his name... Omega (Thomas Jerome Newton), I'll call him Omega. Anyway, Rachel is dating him, and Olivia finds out, and the whole thing is a setup of the "do what we say or I'll kill your sister" variety, and how does Olivia confess to Rachel when the guy she's head over heels for is a bad guy? Total angst. On the other hand, crackfic with Omega falling for Rachel and vice versa." I thought this would be one story but it turns out that it's more. I realized that there was the set-up and that "before" stood perfectly well on its own with the "mission" prompt. I realized the second part, the "after" to this story, works well for the "deception" prompt. This would be the first part of Chichuri's prompt; the crackfic of them falling for each other will come later (the "after"). Posted for Porn Battle [here](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/26521.html?thread=3014553#cmt3014553). Spoilers through the second season. Beta courtesy of [](http://chichuri.livejournal.com/profile)[**chichuri**](http://chichuri.livejournal.com/).

In the old days, missions were brief and decommissioning not all too uncommon. After all, the flesh changed and the transformations became increasingly unstable. Better to build a new machine than to depend on one that might falter at a key moment.

He, however, was a second generation product and one built with a goal of longevity. They had to monitor Dr. Bishop. They could not risk his opening the door again.

Yet the longer he lived, the more peculiar he became. It was not difficult to hide these abnormalities from underlings who changed frequently and without warning. Sometimes as he would watch the steam curling off the surface of his cup of coffee, he thought about the years he'd seen and he would wonder if he was becoming... human.

But he was unlike them and he accepted that. When the time came for his decommissioning, he accepted death with a grace he did not imagine humans to have.

*

His consciousness returns with the efficiency of a simple reboot. "Tell me," he says to the man standing over him, sitting up and allowing his senses to orient to this new place.

After about thirty minutes he's been brought up to speed on the key details. He's shown his team and given his instructions. Joseph Slater will be first--after that, they won't have much time.

*

So this is Olivia Dunham, he reflects as he watches her sprint back to the house; this is William's soldier who he believes can protect his reality of origin.

Her curse from the other end of the phone amuses him. He relays the instructions and delivers his parting jab with satisfaction.

After choosing a car, he drives some distance before he finds a diner.

Inside he orders coffee and takes a seat near the window. He enjoys the view until his coffee starts to get cold. Then he begins to search through her phone.

*

The young woman who answers the door is a little paler and thinner than her pictures. Still, there's no mistaking her. Her brown eyes regard the stranger at her door with suspicion. "Yes?"

"Oh," he manages to look surprised, "I'm sorry, I must--I must have the wrong apartment. Unless Caroline lives here?"

"No." Her gaze drops briefly to the bouquet of flowers before they return to his face. "Maybe she was here before us? We only just moved in."

He makes a show of checking the number on her door. "Ah. I suppose she wasn't very serious about me after all then." Letting his look become sheepish he says, "That's a pity. I haven't any use for these."

She opens her mouth, perhaps to sympathize, when a little face peers around her legs and asks, "Are those flowers for Mom?"

"Ella," the woman whispers, turning slightly to try to push her daughter back inside.

At this, he smiles. Rachel is obviously curious about him but more concerned with keeping her daughter out of harm's way. When she fails to send Ella back into the apartment, he answers the little girl, "Well, she certainly may take them if she likes. I was just telling her the lady I bought them for didn't want them."

"That looks like a daffodil," Ella says, overriding her mother again. This time she wiggles past Rachel's legs into the doorway.

"Why yes," he takes hold of the stem and pulls it up slightly from the rest of the bunch, "I believe it is."

"I love daffodils," the child tells him with perfect sincerity. Her eyes are on the flower and she is unaware of her mother's worried look.

He makes a show of looking between the child and her mother. "I really have no use for them," he repeats to Rachel, infusing the words with sincerity and charm.

Relenting, she only gives a slight nod. When he passes the daffodil to Ella, she prompts her daughter, "Say thank you."

"Thank you," Ella sings before slipping around her mother's legs again, presumably to find some water for her flower.

"Sorry about the mix-up," he tells her as she begins to retreat behind the door.

Still, he does not miss the way her eyes flicker over his form as she murmurs, "That's alright," and a farewell before shutting him out.

*

He whistles on his way back down the stairs, tossing the bouquet in circles and catching it with the same hand. He drops the rest of the flowers in the garbage before moving to his car. Allowing himself one parting glance at her apartment window, he considers his next move, then drives away.

*

Two weeks later he bumps into her at the minimart. "Hello," he only after she gives him an acknowledging smile. "Did your daughter like the daffodil?"

"Yes, thanks." She's uncertain what to say and finally asks, "Did you ever find your Caroline?"

He shakes his head to indicate he hasn't.

"Her loss," she murmurs.

Her eyes keep flickering over him and for a moment he wants to ask her what she sees. Instead, they have a little more small talk before they part ways.

*

"I don't see the point."

He steeples his fingers and stares at the image of Rachel and her daughter frozen on Olivia's cellphone screen. "These are her weaknesses," he gestures to the surveillance photos of her family and members of her team. "She'll be more careful with Dr. Bishop now that we've tried for him once. Her sister and her niece--they're more vulnerable and much closer.

His soldier shifts uncomfortably, perhaps unable to comprehend his plan. "Why do we need her?"

"Because," Thomas chides him, blue eyes cool as winter skies, "You must always have a contingency plan."

*

Dr. Bishop lied to him. He suspected as much but the door that opens is highly unstable. Half-truths were elusive enough to convince the machines and give the doctor his escape.

His soldiers look at him, distrusting his quiet laughter. "Dr. Bishop," he tells the absent man, "You're still a spiteful son of a bitch."

*

It's the sixth or so time he's run into Rachel at the grocery store. She is no longer distrustful of him and even laughs at his self-depreciating humor. When she grabs a bottle of wine, she looks at him and holds her hand up to hold off any reproach. "Ella's with her dad this weekend and I--don't want to think much about it."

"I'm sorry," he says and he sounds as genuine as he's trained himself to be. He only waits a moment before he takes his opening: "You know, I'm not doing anything for dinner, and I have all this food that I keep buying so that I can see you--would it be terribly forward if I invited you to dinner?"

She flustered by his compliment, just as he intended, and he's not worried by the silent debate she engages in before she answers, "I would really like that, Thom."

He gives her the address of the apartment he's rented to this very end and they agree she'll come up at six. After they part outside the grocery store, he gives his men the signal. Soon their failsafe will be in place.

*

She brings her bottle of wine and pretends not to watch him as he cooks. He calculates the approval in her eyes and sets up the conversation like pieces on a chess board. She laughs more and more through the dinner and his smile becomes easier as they dine.

After, her soul is open and her body inviting. She draws him down onto the couch with slow, seductive kisses. He's surprised to feel himself respond to her touch, to her unspoken gratitude because he has rescuing her from her loneliness tonight. His fingers slip under her blouse and she sounds so content when she sighs at his touch. He explores her as a creature never encountered before. The dim light flickers in her brown eyes as she watches with amusement at the restraint of his touch.

"Rachel," he says suddenly although he keeps his voice low.

Sensing his hesitation, she pulls herself up and stares at him with those big doe eyes. "I want to," she promises him as her finger traces the line of his jaw. "I want to."

*

After it's done, he sits on the edge of the bed and feels--guilt.

She's sleeping, still flushed from their love making, helped along by the drugs he slipped into the glass of water he brought her before they settled back on the bed. She fell asleep with her ear to his chest, listening to the mechanical sounds that made her believe he had a heart. There's a little mark on her neck, just under her hairline, where he's inserted the device.

His failsafe. Pensively, he rubs his hand over his mouth.

He still tastes her. He has only to turn and he can see her soft, curvy body tangled in his sheets. The sedative he gave her would not be hard for her to overcome. If he wanted, he could probably rouse her, although he's not sure to what end. His mission is completed; he didn't plan to get Rachel into bed to do it but it's done as it should be nonetheless.

As if sensing his thoughts, she shifts in her sleep and gives another soft little sigh. The sound reminds him of many others she made in the course of the evening and he feels his treacherous organic flesh react.

He does turn to her at last, moving along the bed until he's returned to his place beside her. He lifts her onto his chest and she settles against him with a contented murmur.

Staring at the ceiling, he admits to himself this does nothing to further the mission, certainly had nothing to do with his plan. His hand drifts idly over her hair as he thinks about the dawn and what must come after. She is just a mission after all and Thomas is a soldier who has learned how to extract himself when the mission is done.


End file.
